jmd
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fourhares.com
Posts: 1,081
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Post by jmd on Nov 20, 2005 13:05:43 GMT
As it seems that a few others here have their own personal site, I thought it may be time for me to also make my mark (so to speak ) A site in the stages of eternal development, and at this stage very much in draft form. It will, however, hopefully also explain not only some of the areas I have personal interest, but also perhaps my own peculiar orientation to Freemasonry. Catch it if you can
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jmd
Member
fourhares.com
Posts: 1,081
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Post by jmd on Nov 28, 2005 10:48:05 GMT
For those who have had a chance to look through, please do let me know your thoughts - the site, though still very much unfinished even in structure, can now be seen for what it will be.
...I may or may not incorporate suggestions, but will in any case value and consider your reflections.
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bod
Member
UGLE - MM (London), MMM RAM(Middx), OSM (London)
Posts: 1,296
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Post by bod on Dec 18, 2005 23:50:19 GMT
Very good JMD, nice layout, informative, easy to navigate around. Look forward to seeing it develop.
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jmd
Member
fourhares.com
Posts: 1,081
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Post by jmd on Apr 29, 2006 15:13:30 GMT
I have just updated my link in the opening post, and am also in the process of totally revamping the LoR (nooo... NOT Lord of [the] Rings) site.
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jmd
Member
fourhares.com
Posts: 1,081
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Post by jmd on Mar 9, 2007 10:42:55 GMT
I have (finally) decided to slowly add various papers and lectures I have written over the years on my site, or if already on the .net, link to that paper on that site (usually a site I look after in any case). So... as a start, here are the bibliographic pages to two areas begun: Fourhares.com: Freemasonry Fourhares.com: Tarot
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Post by leonardo on Mar 9, 2007 11:20:19 GMT
Nice site, very informative and easy on the eye. I'm sure it will prove beneficial to all who visit.
Must start my own personal site too. Are the professional ones expensive to set up and maintain?
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jmd
Member
fourhares.com
Posts: 1,081
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Post by jmd on Mar 12, 2007 1:22:30 GMT
Thanks Leonardo.
Not sure what you mean by a professional site (in the context). The site is hosted freely on GoDaddy.com (hence the adverts at the top), and created a simple design so that I could easily maintain it myself.
It will in part depend on one's (growing) knowledge of, for example, html, and carefully observing what one likes and dislikes on other sites, emulating, as far as possible, those things one enjoys, and avoiding (such as those dreaded frames!) what one dislikes.
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Post by leonardo on Mar 12, 2007 8:59:17 GMT
I tell you what JMD that's a great example of what can be achieved using one of those free hosing sites. I'm gonna try and set something up myself this week. Thanks for the info.
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jmd
Member
fourhares.com
Posts: 1,081
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Post by jmd on May 7, 2007 8:22:43 GMT
As I regularly visit various sites, I have decided to also make myself a 'homepage' on my Geocities account with a link to most of my websites, and the three other sites I visit regularly: au.geocities.com/j_mdavid/
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jmd
Member
fourhares.com
Posts: 1,081
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Post by jmd on Sept 19, 2007 11:31:57 GMT
Before I add the table for all GLs in all countries, I would like some feedback as to whether it is a useful addition to have: fourhares.com/freemasonry/worldwideGLs.html#AustralasiaBasically, instead of simply listing the GLs, a brief overview is given as to whether they accept women, men, and whether they accept individuals whose belief is their own private matter (laïc), or accept those who profess a belief in a Supreme Being, and accept those who profess to be Christian. The phrasing was to show inclusivity, rather than exclusion. I did not add another category related to genetic ancestry as all GLs at least nominally do not exclude on that basis. Your feedback would be appreciated...
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Post by gaslight on Sept 19, 2007 12:51:30 GMT
Before I add the table for all GLs in all countries, I would like some feedback as to whether it is a useful addition to have: fourhares.com/freemasonry/worldwideGLs.html#AustralasiaBasically, instead of simply listing the GLs, a brief overview is given as to whether they accept women, men, and whether they accept individuals whose belief is their own private matter (laïc), or accept those who profess a belief in a Supreme Being, and accept those who profess to be Christian. An admirable idea, but where are you going to find the information? Looking through your list of GLs, I couldn't help noticing India. Just two are listed, but I've also heard of the Grand Lodge of Upper India, the Grand Lodge of South India, the Grand Lodge of Western India and Grand Lodge of Eastern India. The GL of South India used to have a website, but it seems to have disappeared. Keeping track of such GLs must be a sisyphean task.
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Post by gaslight on Sept 19, 2007 13:01:40 GMT
As it seems that a few others here have their own personal site, I thought it may be time for me to also make my mark (so to speak ) A site in the stages of eternal development, and at this stage very much in draft form. Is that Google bar part of the GoDaddy.com free hosting deal, or something you placed yourself? I think it creates a tawdry impression, right from the top page. I tried some of your other sites and notice you have one for a Steiner school. You might be interested in using the Moodle course management system (developed by an Australian) for course support.
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jmd
Member
fourhares.com
Posts: 1,081
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Post by jmd on Sept 19, 2007 22:54:33 GMT
Thanks Bro gaslight.
Keeping up is indeed a sisyphean task - but with each pushing uphill, the burden is lightened... and thanks for the GL of various parts of India - I had thought they were disctrict GLs (similar to various district GLs under UGLE), so I'll have to look at that again.
The advert google bar at the top is indeed a free hosting deal. I've considered moving the lot to a paid area, but have been putting it off for obvious (read: financial) reasons.
Also, Moodle is indeed something wonderful that I am aware of but do not use. The site itself is actually not so much for a Steiner school per se, but at this stage only for html exercises to be uploaded by both high school and teacher-training students (and the exercises then get promptly deleted).
The GL listing, by the way, has been there for quite some time - it is more the new table I added for Australia that I wondered what others thought. This seems one thing that is missing from the other similar lists either in print or on the web (such as Bessell's list).
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Post by gaslight on Sept 19, 2007 23:50:32 GMT
Keeping up is indeed a sisyphean task - but with each pushing uphill, the burden is lightened... and thanks for the GL of various parts of India - I had thought they were disctrict GLs (similar to various district GLs under UGLE), so I'll have to look at that again. I could be wrong, but I think they sprang up at the time of the Grand Lodge of India's spat with UGLE and were formed from Brethren not wishing to toe the GLI line. Now that UGLE has restored recognition of GLI, perhaps they've been sidelined. Sorry for preaching to the converted. I wouldn't recommend Moodle to anyone running a Lodge website, but I've noticed more and more such sites switching to heavy-duty content management systems. Strikes me as serious overkill. I've never seen anything like that before and I think it's a great idea. I have one comment (reservation?) about the 'Rating' column. It resembles a product evalution even though, as far as I can see, it's just a total of the check marks in the other columns. Or do you feel that GLs with more check marks rate higher? I've been exploring some of the other pages on your website. Is it okay to comment on those too?
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Post by gaslight on Sept 20, 2007 1:02:42 GMT
The advert google bar at the top is indeed a free hosting deal. I've considered moving the lot to a paid area, but have been putting it off for obvious (read: financial) reasons. Sorry about that question. Had I read the entire thread from the beginning, I'd have known about the free hosting deal. This got me to thinking about my own hosting expenses, something I haven't done recently. I have use of four sub-domains at work but prefer not to use them for personal stuff. So, about three years ago, I signed up with Dreamhost and have been with them ever since. I'm on something called the "Crazy Domain Insane" plan which comes to $190 per two years. That gives me over 250GB of disk space and 3000GB of bandwidth per month. I'm using less than of 1% of each, so those allocations creep up each month. I have four domains registered with Dreamhost at $9.95 p.a. each So that comes to about $135 per year, or a little over $10 per month. In return for that outlay, I have more disk space and more bandwidth than I currently need and have used it to backup some lodge websites I run elsewhere. Choosing a hosting company was difficult. Several offered equally attractive rates and had received equally enthusiastic customer ratings. I've had no problems whatsoever with Dreamhost and intend to stick with them a lot longer.
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jmd
Member
fourhares.com
Posts: 1,081
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Post by jmd on Sept 20, 2007 6:16:01 GMT
Thanks again Bro gaslight - I'll delete the 'rating' - it was something I with which I was somewhat ambivalent in any case.
At the moment, Tarotpedia.com and tarotstudies.org reside on Dreamhost within a friend's account, and I have been toying (and toiling) with the idea of purchasing one there for the lot. Their services are very reasonable and their control panels well set out - I've only been impressed with them since using them. At the moment, the cost to myself is $0.00, so I can't complain!
By all means feel free to comment on the other pages as well... but I realise that a number of pages need some major work (I spend far more time on the tarotstudies.org and tarotpedia.com sites in terms of ensuring they are complete and all is well).
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Post by gaslight on Sept 20, 2007 13:12:35 GMT
At the moment, Tarotpedia.com and tarotstudies.org reside on Dreamhost within a friend's account, and I have been toying (and toiling) with the idea of purchasing one there for the lot. We seem to have walked down the same road together. Not so much comments as questions. I really like the design of Tarot Studies and was wondering how you did it. Did you use a template or did you code all the nested tables yourself? I took a look at the source and noticed that many tags contain both absolute formatting (bgcolor, width, height, etc.) and a CSS class. Is there any reason why you didn't go the whole way with CSS? I see you're using MediaWiki for Tarotpedia. A quick peek behind scenes shows you have an enthusiastic band of contributors. Way to go!
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jmd
Member
fourhares.com
Posts: 1,081
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Post by jmd on Sept 20, 2007 14:14:09 GMT
Basically, I'm not very apt with complex css, nor can I take credit for the association.tarotstudies.org [ATS] overall site look: that is the design of Robert Mealing (whose other works have included working on the design of such sites as Hitachi and Park City Helitours - to give a couple of other and quite different sites). He's the expert at this, and I pick up and edit, using the templates he created, and altering both those and individual pages as need be - but basically, the CSS file for the ATS site I have not retouched so far, and he knows my limits in the area. The nested tables, however, is something that I personally often use in exercises I also set for students, and at various times add to some Newsletter pages (or the Journal pages) as the need arises.
Similarly, when we worked on the design of Tarotpedia [TP] - again my idea but something we designed together, his design skills were vastly superior to my own. The LodgeOfResearch.com and FourHares.com sites are entirely my own, and you will see that in those the CSS files - and the design in general, is quite inferior - though I do use some nested tables thereon (which I usually do on paper first in order to break them into appropriate configurations for coding).
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Post by gaslight on Sept 21, 2007 3:45:28 GMT
Basically, I'm not very apt with complex css, nor can I take credit for the association.tarotstudies.org [ATS] overall site look: that is the design of Robert Mealing Ah, isn't he the author of the roses site? Beautiful stuff. I'm a great fan of CSS and have been slowly converting all my old sites, a long and tedious process, even when using automated formatting scripts. The only drawback I've found is with tables (deprecated in strict XHTML) and centering. Internet Explorer is the fly in what would otherwise be a delicious pie. I have so much trouble imagining how a table will look that I switch to Dreamweaver for this part of my coding. Otherwise I prefer a text editor. Where I do really on paper is initial site design — the mother of all headaches. In one lodge website I included a section for historical papers relating to the history of the lodge and created a hierarchy of links to go there and back. A week ago I get a submission that covers Masonic history not related to the lodge. Where to put it? I tacked it on, but will need to do some serious restructuring. The really scary thing about restructuring is that all those cached Google links will break and it may be months before they're reestablished.
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jmd
Member
fourhares.com
Posts: 1,081
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Post by jmd on Sept 21, 2007 12:10:04 GMT
exactly... hence why I try and tell people to think carefully when designing a site about content and how parts relate to others - and yes, I too use Dreamweaver.
And yes, his Roses site is fantastic... though he is currently doing a major revision of a section of his site, so am not sure what is currently public.
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